


Freshmore Year

by AncientCovenants



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes is Very Perceptive, Denial, Freshman Year, M/M, Michael Guerin is a Genius, Misunderstandings, Teenaged hormones, alphabetical order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AncientCovenants/pseuds/AncientCovenants
Summary: A couple of slice of life one-shots featuring Michael and Alex.or “What if Michael and Alex had met before senior year of high school?”
Relationships: Michael Guerin & Alex Manes
Kudos: 11





	1. Freshman Year

**Author's Note:**

> I've been re-watching Roswell from the beginning and I noticed how small of a class there was at the reunion in the first episode. It was about a hundred people—and that's being generous—and I figure that in a class that small, Michael and Alex may have had a chance or two to interact before senior year when we see them “officially” meet.

**Freshman Year**

Dr. Weiss believed in alphabetical order.

At the end of a test, students from the back of the class would always pass their tests up first, the student in front of them placing their own paper on top and passing it forward, repeating the process until all tests were in the front row and were picked up from left to right, ensuring that alphabetical was _always_ the order.

Yes, Dr. Weiss believed in alphabetical order, and had assigned the students seats accordingly.

Which is how, he found himself sitting next to ‘the boy in black’ in the back of the class.

He wasn’t sure why he’d always chosen to dress in black—this was _Roswell,_ after all, and being surrounded by the desert meant it could get very hot during the day. He’d settled on it being his armour, _like he himself wore his acerbic wit on his tongue,_ so too did the boy wear his black, trying—and _failing_ —to fade into the background.

He wasn’t sure why but he wanted to see him in color.

He already had hair of the most luscious milk chocolate and, from what little he could glean as he discreetly stole glances at his neighbor during class, the brightest of chestnut eyes lined in the darkest of charcoals…

Really, he was a meal in and of himself.

A part of him stirred in interest.

He swallowed, shifting in his seat and starting to think of math equations, sine and cosine and tangents, graphs and…

The boy turned his back to him and bent down to look through his bag.

_Damn, his ass looked great in those jeans…_

His pencil floated in the air out of the corner of his eye.

_Fuck!_

He snatched it out of the air so hard that it broke in half.

The boy was turning…

Which meant he had less than half a second to come up with and execute a plan that would save him from even further embarrassment.

He grabbed his bag, yanking it into his lap to hide the evidence of his teenaged hormones running amok. He focused all this power into allowing a miniature whirlwind to take place inside his bag where no human eyes could see as he rummaged through it to find another pencil in the hurricane.

_Success!_

He pulled out a pencil and started scribbling indecipherable notes onto his paper.

His face burned as he felt the cause of all his troubles staring at him curiously.

_Look away, look away, look away…_

He studiously focused on anything but the boy with pretty eyes and soft-looking hair, the thought of which was _not_ helping the situation.

But then the boy turned away and all was right with the world.

He could finally _breathe_ again.

He just hoped he could find an excuse to leave so he could take care of the _other_ little problem still plaguing him.


	2. Sophomore Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for Freshman Year actually came about as I was writing this and there is a subtle reference to ‘the incident’ which inspired the last chapter. Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. I may have taken one little creative liberty at the very beginning of the chapter regarding when Michael lived in Roswell so I’m pretty sure the timeline for this doesn’t quite match up to the show. Forgive me?

**Sophomore Year**

“You don’t belong here.”

He grit his teeth and gathered his things. He’d just gotten back to Roswell from the foster home they’d sent him to in Albuquerque. But since it _was_ January and he hadn’t been seen in these halls since _last June_ , he was, in essence, the new kid in school. And, while he didn’t particularly want to pick a fight practically a week into being here, he wasn’t about to let some jackass trying to be a big man by slinging stinging words and insults his way put him down.

“Picking on the new kid?” He drawled, making his way to the door. “Isn’t that a bit cliché?”

He’d taken all of five steps out of his math class when the jerk replied.

“I meant that you should be challenging yourself.” He paused. “I’m pretty good when it comes to math but even _I_ don’t understand differential calculus.” His face must have asked the question for him when he turned because the jackass he _may_ have been too quick in labelling— _though he did have a great ass, not that he’d noticed_ —gestured to the book in his hands. “Your notebook’s full of it.”

He was certainly smart enough to _recognize_ differential calc when he saw it, if not understand it which begged the question, “If you’re so smart, then why are you taking Ng’s class?”

“I’m not.” He wondered if he looked as confused as he felt. “Mr. Ng was one of my favorite teachers when I had his class.” The guy shrugged. “So I help him out during my free period, grade tests and stuff.”

That was nice. _He_ was nice. Not everyone offered to volunteer their free time to help a teacher they weren’t trying to get anything out of. It was really sweet of him to do so…

His heart most certainly did not skip a beat at the thought.

He barely even knew him so he was definitely _not_ starting to crush on him…

He wondered who he was trying to convince.

The guy continued, “If you’re as good in math as I think you are, you can bet he’ll notice.” He smiled and leaned in conspiratorially, light glinting off the new ring in his nose—it hadn’t been there last year _._ “Just don’t be surprised when he offers to write your guidance counselor a letter of recommendation so you can transfer to AP Calc.”

_Wait… what?_

And with that, he was gone.

A thrum of excitement rushed through him while his chest felt odd, almost as if a small hollow space has been carved in it.

He was so screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t decided if I’m going to write a slice of life for junior year yet. If I do, it probably won’t be until after I finish writing ‘Red Sky at Night’ which only has a couple of chapters left.

**Author's Note:**

> I also figured, since Max caused a school-wide blackout because Liz wiped hot sauce off his lip with her thumb, there was probably more than one instance of teenaged hormones causing alien powers to run amok… ;)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Part II: Sophomore Year will be up tomorrow.


End file.
